Wedding Photographers like to party

I just returned home from Las Vegas where I hung out with thousands of awesome wedding photographers. This video of Jeff Newsom and The Mammoth Men singing karaoke sums up the highlight of my trip. If I ever get sad I am going to revisit this happy place and all my worries will fade and my sorrows disappear. My wedding photographer and best friend, Jeff Newsom, brought the Hard Rock Hotel’s house down Tuesday night when he took the stage to sing a Queen cover. This may shock some people, but this is the Jeff Newsom that I met over 10 years ago in high school when we both were in bands that played together. Ahhh…. It was so good to see Newsom back on stage. He hasn’t lost it one bit!


Jeff Newsom and The Mammoth Men from Cameron Ingalls on Vimeo.

MerryChristmasHappyNewYear!

What an amazingly restful holiday! I took the past two weeks off from work and stayed home; which is more of a challenge than you might think. Anna and I spent lots of time with our family and friends. Most vacations take us away from home and while we love to travel sometimes we feel like we miss out on the pure and undefiled awesomeness of San Luis Obispo.

Even though it has been good for me to take these couple of weeks off I found myself getting rather restless thinking of all the wonderful things I want to do for my business. I would sneak into my office to catch up on emails and then I would want to blog and then I would hear that voice. The one telling me to rest… and play. To enjoy all of the wonderful people that make up my family and friends. Because, what else is life but an journey and an adventure to share with the ones we love? Word.

I just had to post these goofy elf pictures to ceremoniously end the Holiday season. We had fun renting these costumes and dressing up for our Christmas Card. Our Photographer, Jeff Newsom (well, his wife) gave birth to the most beautiful baby on Christmas day. I would probably want to steal it if I didn’t have a chance of having my own. Now…I’m a creep. ;) I gotta get back to work; too much fresh air is making me crazy!

My Wife is InStyle!

How amazing is this?!

If you pick up a current copy of InStyle Weddings and flip to around page 90 you will find an ad for mywedding.com that features a stunningly beautiful picture of my lovely wife! The magazine has been on stands for a couple of weeks now. I was waiting for either Jeff or Anna to blog about it, but I guess they are both a little humble. Therefore, I will have to be the proud husband and friend to say just how awesome it is to have had one of the most amazing wedding photographers, Jeff Newsom, document our day and to have such a stunning bride!

Mywedding.com asked Jeff for a picture of Anna from our wedding because they said that she was just sooo beautiful. It is true. So many people that have seen our images comment about just how beautiful she looked that day. I think it really came down to the fact that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was loved. A woman who knows love is a woman of stunning and endless beauty.

Mywedding.com said that they have already had tremendous feedback from this image and so many brides are inquiring about where Anna got her dress. She picked it up at Down The Aisle and it was made by a Canadian designer called Selena. Anna really just wanted something simple and elegant that worked perfectly with her body type. It was also important to her to find a dress that didnt look like every other brides dress that I have photographed. She wanted to be the most beautiful bride that I have ever laid my eyes upon. She was and she still is.

Planning a Wedding is CRAZY!

Planning a wedding is a crazy amount of work. Most anyone reading my blog right now knows that it is not easy because most likely you are planning your own wedding! Being in the industry I had an unfair advantage of knowing exactly whom I wanted to do what way before I popped the question to my lovely lady. Hiring people for your wedding can either make or break your day. It’s important to find the right people who are have high standards of professionalism, customer service and style. Since I just went through the craziness of my planning my own wedding I would love to share with you the amazing people who used their talents and creativity to make our day exactly what we have dreamed it to be. While there were countless friends and family who pulled together to help us out I am going to focus on professional vendors who are in the wedding industry specifically. This 'thank you blog' is long overdue!

First things first. We needed a logo. A 'Cameron & Anna' logo. My web designer, Seth Roberts, was the man for the job. I photographed our tandem bike and he rendered it into a drawing. His wife wrote our names all-fancy to finish it off. The symbolism behind the tandem bike is teamwork. It takes teamwork and trust to ride tandem AND to get married. I bought Anna a tandem bike a year ago for Valentines Day and I discovered quickly that I had a lot to learn about loving and trusting. Our friend Ben Brown over at Ally Company screen-printed these ties for the groomsmen and I.

For our wedding invitations I wanted something really different, not too standard and somewhat artistic. My friend Jaime Merz who designed my business logo helped us out for the invitations. She did an amazing job and really captured who we are even through the invites. Every bit of text we had to stamp with rubber stamps she had made for us. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun! Thanks Jaime. You are the greatest!

To be honest Anna was a bit stressed out about finding a dress that I hadn't seen before. She really didn't want to look like every other bride that I have photographed in the past 5 years, yet she wanted to look like herself. Which makes it even more crazy that she found a stunningly perfect dress the first place that she went, Down The Aisle in Arroyo Grande. The ladies there are simply incredible and took amazing care of Anna from start to finish! Jennifer Blue Allen from ‘Something Blue’ did her alterations to make it ‘fit like a glove’!

Anna isn't one of those girls who likes a lot of make-up so she really had to be selective when choosing a make-up artist. Our good friend Amy Robinson (Hair stylist and Make-up Artist at Ashe Salon Downtown) did a perfect job, not too little, not too much. Simply glamorous!

Brooke Jones from Reveal Salon rocked the ladies hair styles. She also cuts both Anna and my hair on a regular basis, but I was confidant enough to style myself on the day of. ;) Brooke is a really sweet friend and also the wife of my assistant, Simon. More brides should hire Brooke to do their hair, especially when travel is involved... so that Simon and I can bring both of our wives!

Anna had a specific look she wanted to create for her jewelry and had it custom made at this awesome little jewelry shop downtown called La Crème. Kelly, part owner and jewelry creator designed it with Anna in under 3 weeks! It was very antique yet modern, which is completely Anna's style.

Speaking of jewelry... we put our heads together with Matt Moreman over at Kevin Main Jewelry to design our wedding rings. After we talked about what we thought would be really cool, Matt made up a design and emailed us an AutoCAD version of it for approval. From there we made some minor modifications and he made the molds. We stopped by the shop for one last look at the molds before the casts were made and the gold was poured. After the gold had set they hand-etched the vines that scroll around the ring's parameter and polished them up to perfection. It took a long time, but we absolutely LOVE our rings now because they are so personal.


Jessica Cheatwood did the flowers. I was actually the best man in her wedding years ago because she married a good ol' friend of mine. Jessica has such a fresh and creative way of arranging flowers to make them personal little works of art. She has promised me for years that she would do the flowers at my wedding, which made me so excited to finally call her and commission her for the job.

Jeremy Davenport from Eclair Bakery in Arroyo Grande made us the most amazingly beautiful and tasty wedding cake that I have encountered in all my days. I know I am sounding dramatic, but it's true! I shot Jeremy's wedding about 4 years ago when I was a brand-new wedding photographer. They got me at such a deal back then that they have promised me all these years to bless me back with the world's greatest wedding cake. Well...they finally did. And check out that tandem bike topper made of chocolate!!! We couldn't believe our eyes...or our stomachs!


Phoenix Fine Catering rocked our reception with some delicious wild mushroom lasagna. Everyone raved about how amazing it all tasted! After I first contacted Jennifer from Phoenix I realized that I totally underestimated all that their service entailed. When I asked about where to get tables and chairs she promptly replied, 'We'll take care of it.' When I asked about honey-huts and space heaters she said, 'We'll take care of it.' When I panicked about the fact that there was no power at our new venue (3 weeks prior to the wedding) she calmly replied, ‘We’ll take care of it!’ They not only served our guests amazingly tasty food, but they co-coordinated our reception and took care of all of our rental needs!

Being a wedding photographer I figured what better way to decorate our venue than to use humongous prints of Anna and I of our engagement pictures. My incredible print lab, Pro DPI, gave us our wedding present in the form of all these great enlargements that decorated our tables and walls at our reception. Here is a picture of Jeff and Caitlin singing a song to get their dinner while holding some picture party favors printed out at their professional digital photography lab. These guys have been the hugest blessing to my business and make what I do and the high level of quality I have for my prints possible.


My friend Joel Toelbert, AKA 'Snag' rocked the night away with our sweet dance tunes. Being a musician was a plus because he was able to set up and run the sound for my bros who played the intro music. Snag even jammed along on the steel guitar. It sounded great from the ceremony all the way into the reception. Snag didn’t work alone however, and had our friend Cory helping out at the DJ table. The highlight of the dance party was for sure the break-off between Snag, Cory, my brother-in-law Toby, and my friend Simon. It got criz-zazy! So if anyone is looking for a fresh break-dancing, guitar playing DJ, be sure to hit me up.


Last but not least... the awesome Jeff Newsom shot all of these pictures! He has been a dear friend since the start of my business and is the closest thing I have had to a partner. If he weren’t such an incredible wedding photographer, I would have totally wanted him to be standing up there with me during our wedding. Jose Villa actually took this shot of the 3 of us, but I will post about him later.

Here is a fun video of Newsom in action. I couldn't resist bringing my camera. Everything was so beautiful...especially my bride!


I hope this blog entry helps people out a bit. I wanted to sincerely and publicly thank all the vendors who did such a spectacular job (ME TOO!!! We are forever grateful!....Anna). I also wanted to share their contact information with you because if you hire any of them for your wedding you won't be disappointed!

Mr. & Mrs. Ingalls.

Hi Everyone! This is Jeff and I am officially hijacking Camerons' blog. This saturday, I had the enormous honor of attending one of the coolest weddings in the history of the world. There simply couldn't have been a more perfect day for two of the most awesome people I know. BTW... Anna looked AMAZING! Just hit play for 100% pure awesome. I'm going to write and show a little more on my blog. Leave Cameron and Anna some love, they deserve it all!

What a freaking honor it was for me to shoot this!!!



Love, Jeff

15 days and counting...

I can't believe I am about to get married! Planning a wedding is crazy...can I get an ‘amen’?! We had to change our venue at the 11th hour and these amazing people out in Huasna are allowing us to get married in 'God's Country'. I am so blessed by how much friends and family are coming together to support us out through this whole wedding day experience. Kinda reminds me of the old days when families threw weddings down the road at the park and moved it to the folks backyard for bbq and beans. I think the industry has spoiled a bit of opportunity for community to pull together for the big day. But I digress. It's late. I should be sleeping...but I'm getting married in less than 2 weeks! Who can sleep?!

Here are my favorite engagement pictures ever that I didn't take. The ever-amazing Jeff Newsom is the man behind the lens once again. He astounds me always. We are close friends and fellow photo-nerds. A lot of people mix us up occasionally thinking the amazing wedding photos they saw somewhere were mine and I end up having to tell them they are Newsom's. I don't get offended when I am mistaken for the greatness of Jeff's work. Just challenged a bit to continue pushing the limits and capturing people in new and more creative ways. This was a really fun photo shoot (couple of photo shoots) where we set up his gnarly lighting rig for the sweet scooter shot. Check out his work. He's the best!

Tacky Office Christmas Party

Friday night we had our 2nd annual Tacky Christmas Party. This year's theme was extended to 'Tacky OFFICE Christmas Party'. Anna and I have become big fans of 'The Office' recently with their outdated clothing stlye and frequent awkward moments. Jeff & Kim Newsom were the couple of the night and Jeff never broke out of character. His 'office name' was Herb. Herb is a simple man. Herb doesn't say much. Herb just kinda stares at you through his bifocals until his moustache creeps you out and you have to get up and make an excuse as to why you are leaving the conversation. Herb has an arm that doesn't go down and no one has the nerve to ask Herb why. Herb also won the white elephant trophey of the night, a sweet new Mac SE. Herb is one proud Mac owner.

One year later...

Well, Seth & Skylana are about a little over one year into their marriage and just about to hatch! Problem is, I am on vacation this week in Oregon and might miss the birth. Because I might miss it, we did a last minute pregnancy shoot at Avila Beach before I left town. Keep your fingers crossed that the baby holds up for another week!



I've been friends with Seth since childhood and been in a homegroup with them on and off again since I met Skylana 6 years ago. They love me so much that instead of asking me to shoot their wedding last year they asked me to marry them. It was an amazing wedding in Seth's parents beautiful backyard. The Amazing Jeff Newsom shot their wedding and this is a magical image from the day. I know that I look good as an officiant and all, with the sunlight illuminating my golden locks, but trust me, it's not as easy as it looks! I will stick to taking wedding pictures thank you very much. There is way too much preparation and pressure. I guess some people say that about the photography.... But photography is a heck of a lot more fun!

I really love Seth and Skylana and I am excited that they are young, in love and new parents. So many changes in the past year for them with marriage and everything, I guess they just wanted to get the biggest changes out of the way early so that they could get into good marriage stride.

The Black Sheep Motorcycle Gang

My mother's worst fears have come to pass! It appears that I have swept up into a notorious motorcycle gang called 'The Black Sheep'!!! Yep, it's true..... Almost.

The real story is as follows. But first, let's go back in time.
The funnest adventure of my life was about 7 years ago on a small Grecian Island called Rhodes. I was in the middle of a 3 day cruise and Rhodes was one of our day trips. As soon as we hit land a friend of mine rented me and another guy some scooters for a ride around the Island. By the time we were halfway around we realized we were in jeopardy of failing to reach the cruise ship before it left port at dinner time so we cut across the island via some beautiful mountain country road. It was the best day of my life! Since then I have really not felt so free..... That is until I came into possession of my very own Yamaha Vino this week. It is perfect for running around little San Luis Obispo! To the lab to drop off a disc of prints.... To California Pizza Kitchen with Jeff Newsom, another proud Vino owner.... And back to the lab to pick up prints; all in a day's work!

Well, I have been riding everywhere I can since I bought my newest companion. This morning I decided to drive my scooter to my church in Arroyo Grande via the side streets of Avila and Pismo Beach. It was a glorious and beautiful ride along the coast! I waved at every motorcycle I passed having automatically earned their respect and admiration from simply owning a motor-cyclical-vehicle. When I pulled into the church parking lot 30 minutes later, I was delighted to find about a dozen Harley Davidsons for me to park next too. It turns out that 'The Black Sheep' were visiting this morning from Santa Maria. When I came out of church a group of them were standing around my 'hog' admiring it's fine craftsmanship. I immediately began to brag about its 50cc's, raven-black paint job and slick chrome detail. Here is a picture that one of them took and emailed to me. Man.... I am so cool all of a sudden!

Oh, yeah. My girlfriend bought one too. Here is a little clip of one of our first rides. Everyone needs a Vino!

Paparazzi Birthday Party... #27!

So my wonderful girlfriend threw me a surprise paparazzi birthday party last Friday night! I was blindfolded and she led me into her backyard only to find myself being photographed by all of my friends. I was really confused especially since Jeff Newsom was dressed as me with a 'Cameron Ingalls mask' he had made out of an enlarged photo, matt board and shoe string. My friend Ben Brown was laying on the ground hiding behind a plant with an exaggerated camera made from stuff he found around the warehouse where he works. Once I realized that not everybody was dressed as me and that I stood at the end of a red carpet someone explained that I was the celebrity and they... the paparazzi! We had a great evening hanging out, eating dinner and a bit of strobe-light dancing which brought the cops knocking at the door. Anna's mother politely apologized and saved me from incarceration. Thank goodness, I had 2 weddings to shoot that weekend! ;) Here are a few more point-and-shoot pictures from the party. Enjoy!


Here's me giving me a lesson on the big camera! Man I'm a good teacher...and learner!




Jeremy Davenport made a cake that said, "Fall in love with THIS moment!" Funny........ Real funny.



Did I mention my wonderful girlfriend?! She is simply wonderful. However, that isn't me... or is it? I'm still confused.